Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

Poem said:
Thank you Ziggurat...yes Pilate.
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Trivia footnote: a modern reader might assume that "pilot" doesn't make sense as a name because there were no airplanes 2000 years ago. This would be wrong. The word "pilot" derives from the latin "pilotus", someone who steers a ship, and even today "pilot" is still used in that context. But despite the similarity, it is unrelated to the name Pilate, which meant someone armed with a pilum (a Roman javelin).
 
Ziggurat said:
Trivia footnote: a modern reader might assume that "pilot" doesn't make sense as a name because there were no airplanes 2000 years ago. This would be wrong. The word "pilot" derives from the latin "pilotus", someone who steers a ship, and even today "pilot" is still used in that context. But despite the similarity, it is unrelated to the name Pilate, which meant someone armed with a pilum (a Roman javelin).
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Nice one...love these nuggets.

Ziggurat said:
Yes, that's my point: you are crossing the wires, and I'm asking you to stop doing that.
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Two separate issues have been discussed.

1. Barnardo's asserting that porn suggestive of sexual activity with children is all over mainstream sites. It's 'extremely harmful', they say - indeed so harmful that it is illegal when present on DVD or Blu Ray.

2. Children abusing other children.

This Guardian article (which I have cited before) discusses a report from the NPCC (National Police Chiefs' Council):

"Boys are watching violent porn on their smartphones then going on to attack girls, police have said, as new data showed children are now the biggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against other children.

Police data shows there has been a quadrupling of sexual offences against children, in what officers say is the most authoritative analysis of offending against youngsters."

The report said, "they were alarmed by the growth of sexual offending by those aged 17 or under."

In 2022 a total of 107,000 offences against children were reported. The police estimate that as few as 1 in 6 are reported - so that's nearer 2/3 of a million.

There was no details about the sort of porn being watched - just that it was violent.

That's not how this works. I don't need an "expert" of my own to critically examine claims.
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Not producing any thus far reduces credibility of your opinion.

Sure, but the fact that they don't like it doesn't mean much.
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Or it means quite a lot.

Maybe, but your definition of rape culture is too broad, and "relevant" is also a pretty damn broad characterization.
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The quote is purely about the fact of rape culture.

Former victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said (2021):
“Last year, I warned that we were witnessing the effective decriminalisation of rape. Nothing in the past year has swayed me from that perspective. The uncomfortable truth is that if you are raped in Britain today, your chances of seeing justice are slim.”

Has banning drugs kept children from trying them? The forbidden fruit isn't always less tempting.
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By consuming porn in huge numbers, society has effectively normalized it which has led to it failing the Miller test...it cannot be deemed 'obscene'. On the one hand, we say that it's illegal to show porn to a child and yet on the other we don't deem it obscene material. Perhaps we need to make our minds up. We have with drugs.
 
Ziggurat said:
Has banning drugs kept children from trying them? The forbidden fruit isn't always less tempting.
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Responsible parents would never leave porn lying around for their children to stumble over. Effectively, as far as they can, they ban porn.

You appear to be suggesting that's not the right thing to do...the model being that society does leave porn lying around for them to see...but tells them not to look at it.
 
Poem said:
Responsible parents would never leave porn lying around for their children to stumble over. Effectively, as far as they can, they ban porn.
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Sure.

You appear to be suggesting that's not the right thing to do...the model being that society does leave porn lying around for them to see...but tells them not to look at it.
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The relationship between parents and children is not equivalent to the relationship between the state and children, let alone the state and adults. What is right and proper for parents to do doesn't equate to what is right and proper, let alone effective, for the state to do. I would argue that much of our current social problems come from the state trying to replace the role of the parent. I would not further encourage that, even as an analogy.
 
Poem said:
1. Barnardo's asserting that porn suggestive of sexual activity with children is all over mainstream sites. It's 'extremely harmful', they say - indeed so harmful that it is illegal when present on DVD or Blu Ray.
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I don't actually believe this claim. The criteria I have been given for what qualifies as "suggestive of sexual activity with children" is sufficiently broad that I doubt all content covered by it actually is illegal on DVD. I would like to see some legal citations given to support such an assertion.

"Boys are watching violent porn on their smartphones then going on to attack girls, police have said, as new data showed children are now the biggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against other children.
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Again, what's causation and what's mere correlation? Suppose we have a child inclined to violently sexually abuse other children, but with no access to porn. Now give that child access to porn, what porn do you suppose they will choose to watch? There's a high probability that he'll choose to watch violent porn because he's already inclined that way. You can have a correlation between these things even in the absence of porn having ANY causative effects.

I have yet to see any evidence for a causative effect of porn on violence. It's conceivable that there is, but that hasn't been demonstrated. And people have a habit of ascribing causation to mere correlation. So when people say there's causation but they can only demonstrate correlation, I'm skeptical. Because there's a long history of people being wrong about that.

Not producing any thus far reduces credibility of your opinion.
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I don't think you understand which direction the burden of proof lies.

By consuming porn in huge numbers, society has effectively normalized it which has led to it failing the Miller test...it cannot be deemed 'obscene'. On the one hand, we say that it's illegal to show porn to a child and yet on the other we don't deem it obscene material. Perhaps we need to make our minds up. We have with drugs.
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And how's that drug war working out for us?

Plus, the entire premise that there's some tension between what we permit for adults and what we permit for children is ridiculous. We have no problem confining alcohol as something perfectly fine for adults but not OK for children. Or even actual sex. Nevermind porn, actual sex is OK for adults but not children. The survival of our species depends on adults continuing to have sex. You're OK with that, aren't you? Yet we prohibit children from having sex, and you're OK with that too, right? Having something OK for adults but not for children isn't a problem. There is no contradiction there, no hypocrisy.

Look, I'm not saying there are no problems with porn. I'm not saying it's not bad for children. I am saying that your claims go well beyond that, and into shaky ground where you don't have evidence to back it up.
 
Ziggurat said:
I don't actually believe this claim. The criteria I have been given for what qualifies as "suggestive of sexual activity with children" is sufficiently broad that I doubt all content covered by it actually is illegal on DVD. I would like to see some legal citations given to support such an assertion.



Again, what's causation and what's mere correlation? Suppose we have a child inclined to violently sexually abuse other children, but with no access to porn. Now give that child access to porn, what porn do you suppose they will choose to watch? There's a high probability that he'll choose to watch violent porn because he's already inclined that way. You can have a correlation between these things even in the absence of porn having ANY causative effects.

I have yet to see any evidence for a causative effect of porn on violence. It's conceivable that there is, but that hasn't been demonstrated. And people have a habit of ascribing causation to mere correlation. So when people say there's causation but they can only demonstrate correlation, I'm skeptical. Because there's a long history of people being wrong about that.



I don't think you understand which direction the burden of proof lies.



And how's that drug war working out for us?

Plus, the entire premise that there's some tension between what we permit for adults and what we permit for children is ridiculous. We have no problem confining alcohol as something perfectly fine for adults but not OK for children. Or even actual sex. Nevermind porn, actual sex is OK for adults but not children. The survival of our species depends on adults continuing to have sex. You're OK with that, aren't you? Yet we prohibit children from having sex, and you're OK with that too, right? Having something OK for adults but not for children isn't a problem. There is no contradiction there, no hypocrisy.

Look, I'm not saying there are no problems with porn. I'm not saying it's not bad for children. I am saying that your claims go well beyond that, and into shaky ground where you don't have evidence to back it up.
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Whilst I take some time to respond in full, may I ask why you missed out this (again)?

Former victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said (2021):
“Last year, I warned that we were witnessing the effective decriminalisation of rape. Nothing in the past year has swayed me from that perspective. The uncomfortable truth is that if you are raped in Britain today, your chances of seeing justice are slim.”
 
Poem said:
Whilst I take some time to respond in full, may I ask why you missed out this (again)?
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I didn't miss it. I just didn't comment on it. I have nothing in particular to say about it at this time, so I see no point in saying anything. I don't understand why you keep bringing it up to me.
 
Ziggurat said:
I didn't miss it. I just didn't comment on it. I have nothing in particular to say about it at this time, so I see no point in saying anything. I don't understand why you keep bringing it up to me.
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It satisfies the required evidence for the thread and yet you don't want to comment?

What could be more damning?
 
Ziggurat said:
I think you're confused about what I'm arguing.
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I think you mentioned it was an issue in the middle east?

But you said this:

In other words, the UK seems to have imported actual rape culture from countries where rape culture means actual rape.

We know that's not true.

The Guardian:
A 2020 Home Office report concluded that such “group-based CSE (child sexual exploitation) offenders are most commonly white”, while victims come from many backgrounds, and include boys. To the government’s own disappointment, it found no reliable, generalisable evidence of ethnic disproportionality among such offenders.
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Perhaps for parts of the UK. I doubt for the entirety.
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Evidence?
 
Poem said:
Evidence?
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Because if it were a major problem among the middle and upper classes, we'd hear a lot more about it. We don't hear about it all the time, which suggests to me it's primarily a problem among the lower classes. The press is often indifferent to problems of the lower class that the upper class don't care about.
 
Ziggurat said:
Because if it were a major problem among the middle and upper classes, we'd hear a lot more about it. We don't hear about it all the time, which suggests to me it's primarily a problem among the lower classes. The press is often indifferent to problems of the lower class that the upper class don't care about.
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I'd like to challenge your assumption. There end up being a LOT of articles out of the UK in particular about CSE cases, and a surprising number of the violators get off with a slap on the wrist. The same is true for rape - there are a lot of them, and even when they do get reported and get press, very little actually happens as a result. Some of the cases I have in mind have been extremely high-profile offenders whose misbehavior was well known and was effectively covered up. Jimmy Saville comes to mind, as does Jeffrey Epstein in the US. FFS, Cosby was only sentenced to 3-10 years, and served only 1.5 yrs before it was overturned.

Thing is... it happens a LOT, but you don't hear anything about it. I don't think it's a "lower class problem" at all. I think it's a problem of sexual abuse and violence against females consistently being downplayed and ignored, and not prosecuted.

Now, I wouldn't say that rape is being decriminalized. I would say that rape has never been effectively and fully criminalized at all, and that despite a brief uptick from "me too"... we're seeing a return to the previous standard of the criminal justice system not really giving a crap about rape and sexual abuse. And while Poem's overall view is more strict than mine with respect to pornography in general... I don't actually disagree with the premise that the increase in accessibility and prevalence of violent and extreme pornography is detrimental.
 
Ziggurat said:
I think you're confused about what I'm arguing.



Perhaps for parts of the UK. I doubt for the entirety.
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Rape Culture, like the culture that motivated all those priests to rape and sexually abuse all those boys for all those years?

The Roman Catholic Church priesthood: the ultimate European rape culture.
 
Hercules56 said:
Rape Culture, like the culture that motivated all those priests to rape and sexually abuse all those boys for all those years?

The Roman Catholic Church priesthood: the ultimate European rape culture.
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I think you think you're making a counterargument, but I think you're reinforcing a fair bit of the point here.
 
Ziggurat said:
Because if it were a major problem among the middle and upper classes, we'd hear a lot more about it. We don't hear about it all the time, which suggests to me it's primarily a problem among the lower classes. The press is often indifferent to problems of the lower class that the upper class don't care about.
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I think there is some evidence that supports this. The ONS highlights the fact that victims are more likely to be never/long-term employed or in lower paid work than those in intermediate, managerial and profession occupations. However, the dominant category is those who are full-time students. The North-East, well know for its deprivation, has the highest rates of sexual assault - though not significantly so. Also, victims are very likely to be young (less than 25) and single.

Even if what you say is true, why does this need pointing out? - since, either way, the UK comes out looking depressingly bad...and one might suspect that this isn't a unique scandal within the developed world.
 
Hercules56 said:
Rape Culture, like the culture that motivated all those priests to rape and sexually abuse all those boys for all those years?

The Roman Catholic Church priesthood: the ultimate European rape culture.
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Children, not boys, not being a pedantic pain but for some reason people assume the abuse was mainly against male children, it wasn’t the RCC abuse included female and male children.
 
Sweden has a very high rape rate - and, it seems, does have a problem with the imported kind:

https://unherd.com/2021/04/swedens-migrant-rape-crisis/

On the basis of population records kept by the official agency Statistics Sweden (SCB), approximately 20% (19.7%) of the Swedish population are foreign-born individuals. Among those convicted of rape and perpetrated rape, the foreign-born account for 47.7% of those convicted — so they are over-represented by a factor of 2.4.
 
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